Since the game is at EOL it cannot generate any profits
Releasing server side source code opens up a route for abusing the game studio making the game
If, as you said, as the game is EOL it doesn’t make profits, then it can’t cause losses either. Otherwise it’d have to be kept alive.
Since if some 3rd part wants to profit off of running private servers of that game, all they have to do is make a flood of bots in-game and on the game’s communication platforms (eg discord servers, communities on Reddit or even Lemmy)
Uh… If they’re 3rd-party servers then hosting isn’t paid for by the publisher. Additionally, game publishers don’t pay for hosting of Discord/Reddit/Lemmy communities. And even if they did if the game is EOL they’d axe that too if it induces any cost.
This coupled with finding as many in-game exploits as possible can drive up costs enough to bankrupt the studio.
It absolutely can’t. The game is DEAD. It causes no profits or losses. Nothing aboit the game matters to the publisher anymore except for brand/reputation for a possible sequel.
forcing them to release server side source code, which the corpos can then grab and monetize the crap out of
Nothing explicitly forces release of source code, any reasonable server application wpuld suffice, open-source or otherwise.
The “corpos” usually make the games. The monetization concern is minimal since a server for a game isn’t anything a corporation couldn’t make on its own if it wanted, nor is it something groundbreaking.
Since the bot flood can be made nigh untraceable by having them operate out of an unfriendly state (say, Russia or China)
The bots would attack servers nit owned or operated by/for the publisher.
and there’s no studio acquisition necessary to get server side code, this would be a perfect extortion method that’d fly under the radar of antitrust legislation
What does any of this have to do with antitrust legislation? If anything, this would curb the publisher’s monopoly over the game servers although that in and of itself isn’t even an illegal monopoly.